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Civic Diplomacy
Civic Diplomacy is a part of diplomacy that everyone will graduate to after completing the Diplomacy Tutorial Quests and Civic Diplomacy Tutorial Quests when their diplomacy level is 4+. Civic Diplomacy allows you to create city wide buffs that will benefit everyone in (or just passing through) the city you are working in. Additionally, each successful Civic Diplomacy Parley will reward you with Diplomacy experience, Faction, Diplomatic Presence, and Information (which you can use to obtain Diplomacy Gear that will boost your Diplomatic Presence). Please note however, that when you fail a Civic Diplomacy Parley you may also lose Diplomatic Prestige and Faction and if you lose enough Faction you will become KoS (Kill on Sight) to the NPCs in that City. Of course, if you are already KoS to the citizens and you want to engage in Civic Diplomacy with them, then you will have to use other means (e.g. Crafting or killing mobs) to gain enough Faction first. Civic Diplomacy Buffs Every City has a number of Civic Diplomacy Buffs that you can activate by "pushing" the appropriate Lever in that City. The citizens of each city belong to one of eight Stations, and you may engage in a total of five different Conversations with each of them. Each combination of Station and Conversation corresponds with one Lever and Civic Diplomacy Buff. Some Conversation types are not permitted in some Cities. The particular Conversation that is not permitted will be the one which blocks the type of Expression that is the main Racial Expression used by the citizens of that city. Some cities deny two types of Conversation. Additionally, not all cities and outposts will have NPCs for all Stations. If you wish to activate a particular Civic Diplomacy Buff for your own benefit, you may have to travel to a different city that has NPCs] belonging to the required Station. It is not possible to engage in Civic Diplomacy Parleys with Merchants (who will be part of the Regional Trade system to be introduced in the future). The Civic Diplomacy Buffs can provide benefits for Adventurers, Crafters and Diplomats and will last for at least 1 hour once activated. To activate a Civic Diplomacy Buff, the diplomat must engage in repeated Parleys that push the same Lever. Use the /citystatus command in game to see the state of all Levers in a city. Each Levers will activate its Civic Diplomacy Buff when it has reached a threshold (40 points in main cities, more on specific outposts/cities) and can be pushed to a maximum (70 points for the 40 points threshold). Levers will decay over time and when it falls below the threshold, the Civic Diplomacy Buff will stop appearing (but will remain active for 1 hour, as it is a regular buff). All of the Levers for a particular Station are grouped together so that when you push one Lever, all of the other Levers in that group are reduced in value. This effect does not however apply to Gossip which can be pushed without affecting any other levers and is not in turn affected when other Levers are pushed. This means that if you want to activate a Civic Diplomacy Buffs you can push at most two Levers at the same time, and one of those Levers must be Gossip. You can of course push Levers from different Stations at the same time without any negative impact. When you win a Civic Diplomacy Parley you will push the Lever by a certain number of points. This number is determined by how much Diplomatic Presence you have with the Station that the NPC belongs to. In order to push a Lever as fast as possible, you need to increase your Diplomatic Presence with that Station as much as you can. Whilst it is possible for a single person with low Diplomatic Presence to push a Lever enough to activate a Civic Diplomacy Buff on their own, this takes a great deal of effort. It is much easier when your Diplomatic Presence is higher, or when you have the assistance of other diplomats in the same city. Finding someone to Converse with There are two main reasons for engaging in Civic Diplomacy: # To activate Civic Diplomacy Buffs; # To increase Diplomacy Skill, Diplomatic Prestige, Faction Ratings, and obtain Civic Information. If you are only interested in the second of these two reasons, then you may choose to engage in multiple Conversation types with NPCs of one or more Stations. If you do this, then depending on which Conversation types you pick, you may suppress all Levers associated with those Stations. Before engaging in this sort of activity you are advised to check to see if any other diplomats in the city are trying to activate one of the Civic Diplomacy Buffs that you might be affecting. Once you have decided what you wish to do, you can use the Lists of Civic NPCs to find NPCs to Parley with. Please note, that you cannot engage in a Civic Diplomacy Parley with an NPC that is greater than 5 levels above you in Diplomacy. Blocked Conversation types If you wish to engage in a particular type of conversation, you will find that not all cities and outposts permit that conversation type. This will be because it would block the primary Racial Expression of the citizens that live in that city. Some cities are the home to two different races with different Racial Expressions, and as a consequence, two types of conversation] will be blocked in those cities. The following table shows the cities and which conversation types are blocked: Increasing Diplomacy Skill Every time you engage in a successful Civic Diplomacy Parley you increase your Diplomacy experience. The amount of experience depends on the difference between your Diplomacy level and that of the NPCs that you Parley. In order to maximise this amount, you should attempt to Parley with NPCs that have the highest level that you are permitted to Parley with (that is 5 levels above yours). You should note that you may have greater chances of failing when attempting to Parley with high level NPCs. Increasing Diplomatic Presence Every time you engage in a successful Civic Diplomacy Parley you have a chance to increase your Diplomatic Presence with the NPCs of the particular Station that you are Parleying. The rate at which this happens depends on how many points the NPC] managed to score during the Parley. If you completely prevent the NPCs from scoring any points at all, then you will gain a point of Diplomatic Presence for every 5th successful Parley. In the worst case (where the NPC scores heavily and you only just win), you should gain a point of Diplomatic Presence for every 12 successful Parleys. Information Rewards All Civic Diplomacy Parleys have a chance to reward you with additional items. The type of item you receive depends on the type of Conversation you engage in. Arcana, Blackmail, Plots, and Trends are all types of Civic Information that can be turned in to a Informant in exchange for a variety of items including Diplomacy Gear to help you improve your Diplomatic Presence with all of the Stations that the NPCs belong to. Increasing Prestige and Faction Ratings Every time you engage in a successful Civic Diplomacy Parley, you increase your Faction Ratings with the city whose NPCs you are Parleying. You also increase your Diplomatic Prestige with the nearest Diplomatic Center. Other than stopping you from being KoS with that city, there are currently no other known benefits to having high Faction Ratings. Diplomatic Prestige is capped at 1000 points. Prestige in a particular city can be used to pay for certain things. A failed Civic Diplomacy Parley can result in a significant loss of Diplomatic Prestige and/or Faction Ratings. Gaining Faction and Prestige The rate at which faction and Prestige faction are gained through parley is dependent on the parley type. *